September 9, 2008

You seem to be looking to end science entirely...you do shun modern medicine, right?"

Well not entirely. You depend on science fully and I know for a fact that it has tremendously large holes. You must agree there is bad science also. Yes I believe that certain science needs to go away. I would love to see pharmaceuticals go away myself. Legal drug pushers is just not working and there are many examples. Instead of reaching for the medicine cabinet there is another medicine cabinet in the house, it's called the kitchen.

Also annoying things like genetic alterations to 'juice up' cows with hormones to produce ten times the amounts of milk and other synthetic ways to ruin a perfect thing. Science cannot even begin to understand the complexity and perfection of cows milk yet they try to alter it 'willy nilly' and the world is the Ginny Pig. We have mad cow disease, scientists thought it was a great idea to feed cows, cow spinal cords? Ask yourself this, which is better for you raw vegetables (closest to God) or canned or frozen?

Vaccines also are ruining many children and rendering them with autism and on and on. Chemicals they used to use to induce labor used to render the children deformed. There are many out there with defects because of it. They still don't know for sure if the current methods are better for women and children. Again Natural is better.

Like it was pointed out in an older post,"You know, there is nothing in human nature or in human history that points to the idea that we are moving anywhere. Technology and science, though they are cumulative and have improved, in many ways, the lives of people within the industrialized nations, have also unleashed the most horrific forms of violence and death, and let's not forget, environmental degradation, in human history. So, there's nothing intrinsically moral about science."

I was searching to see if gelatin (pork or animal fat) was in yogurt, which it is (plain might be OK). I stumbled on this also:

"Another set of controversial ingredients is natural colorings. It is advantageous for manufacturers to use natural colorings to avoid listing artificial colors on the label. Two natural colors with kashrus concerns are carmine and grape. Carmine is derived from the insect coccus cacti."

This bug is crushed up in yogurt and other foods for quote "natural" color. MMM, Yummy!

So yes I would love to see some science go away but that just won't happen. Maybe if we stop connecting science with profit we would be better off. If science could honor God's Creation more in the mindset of scientists, to keep God's things sacred, then we wouldn't be in this trouble we are in. Science has no moral rudder and the ship is adrift.

From that same older post "I think the New Atheists also make that leap from science into the cult of science, and that's a problem."

31 comments:

Interestingly, I agree with a number of your points Dan. Genetically modified crops are released commercially without proper safeguards, Drugging the livestock and keeping them in tiny, grainfed cages produces inferior food, pesticides are overused and Science used for profit keeps causing terrible problems.

But note that the science you and other Young Earth Creationists particulary object to: Evolution, Big Bang Cosmology, Paleantology... are not responsible for any of these.

Really? You'd rather pharmaceuticals went away? You'd prefer that polio and smallpox were still around? I guess its too bad science didn't "honor God's creation" of those particular diseases and instead wiped them out. I imagine you'd prefer we'd find no cure for cancer either, since that'd be unnatural? Oh, and I guess you'd rather people die from infections rather than have antibiotics to use.

"Again Natural is better." Really? You'd prefer the infant and mother mortality rate go back up to what it was before modern medicine? Natural is better? Are you living in a log cabin? Or does your home have nice manufactured siding and insulation? I'm guessing you have a heater and possibly an air conditioner too. And indoor plumbing. And I bet you don't mind the non-natural light you use at night courtesy of the electricity science has harnessed and routed into your non-natural home.

I agree with you that raw vegetables are probably healthier than a steak every night, but surely you must be aware that every single crop in existence today has been cultivated and modified by man for decades, if not centuries. The most popular fruit in the world is the banana. Ever notice that it doesn't have seeds? That's because every single banana you buy has been cloned from other bananas. Sure, wild bananas exists, but they have horrible black seeds in them that you'd have to chew your way around, and they're starchy and bitter. The potatoes, broccoli, apples, grapes, pears, and peaches you've been eating all your life are clones too. Where's the outrage been all these years over them? Where are the claims of the diseases they've caused?

The way you tell it, man should never have learned to make crops more resilient and resistant to heat and cold. Instead, we should have left half of Africa and under-developed nations to starve to death, trying to grow "natural" crops.

And don't you find it slightly ironic to be decrying science while using a computer? Over the internet? It seems you pick and choose the sciences that are the most convenient to you to deem good, much in the same way you pick and choose the passages in the bible that are the most convenient to your beliefs.

I was a food scientist for 8 years after I graduated college; I worked in both uality control and R&D. I have a fairly rare but perhaps informed perspective on a number of the things you mentioned.

Rather than correct the errors in your original post, it's probably better to address some of the more broad points. First, there are (very) generally two kinds of science: research (for lack of a better term) and applied.

The first kind is almost completely amoral - and that's the way it should be. It seeks understanding only, and doesn't place any value judgement of the results of that understanding. It also produces little more than information (as opposed to having an invention built at the end of your experimentation)

The second kind involves industry & commerce, and this is too intertwined with social issues to ignore "morality". Simply put, people need jobs, and as such, care very much about what they're doing. Society also cares about the results of this latter kind of science; biological weapons are effective but indiscriminate in who they affect (for example).

So, be careful about which kind of science you're asking to "go away".

Stealpick is right: you DON'T want vaccines to go away wholesale. For the sake of the lapses in applied science (re. vaccination tied to autism), you would throw away the vast majority of effective and safe treatments in use for the last 50+ years.

I'm sorry, but I find that most people who complain about science in actuality know very little about it. They don't understand how it works, why it's effective, or what it's produced over the last 300 years of humanity's existence.

Could we do a better job of "policing" existing research, or even validating new products to make them more safe? Yup - most definitely. I now work as a software engineer in the biomedical research field; specifically, my company works with medical drug and device producers to test their products, generate the data and send it all to the FDA.

In other words, I'm smack-dab in the middle of this discussion of science and ethics. The vast majority of people have NO idea how difficult it is to get a new vaccing (for example) to the store shelves. Although the process is constantly being adjusted to make it more safe, or to adapt to new technologies/trends, it will occasionally fail.

With that said, it generally takes a drug or device 12 years from the lab bench to the store shelf, and millions of dollars spent long before any profit is guaranteed. The current statistic is that only 2% of all products make it through.

Why am I babbling? Right now, the model America uses to ensure safe products also has to allow for producers to have the possibility of making a profit. Juggling capitalism and volatile markets with a process that ensures public safety can *never* be 100% foolproof.

If you're going to walk around pointing only at the failures, you might as well shut down your computer, turn of the electricity and start growing your own food. And hope you never get sick.

How could I possibly "depend on science fully" when I know - as you do - that science is not complete? I certainly don't rely on science to tell me that I love my wife and child. Perhaps someday scientists will figure that sort of thing out, perhaps not. Science is nothing more than a method for gathering knowledge about the universe, a method which is necessarily performed by human beings, and thus it is neither omniscient nor immune to error.

Obviously, much the same applies to Christianity. The Bible maintains that all people are sinners, imperfect and prone to mistakes. Thus, while you, Dan, think that it provides a "moral anchor," it also says that you cannot possibly follow those morals all the time, or even most of the time. The Bible specifically says that you're a failure, Dan, and because of that, you pointing out some failures of science (a method performed by what the Bible says are flawed creations) comes off as sour grapes.

Does a hammer honor God's creation? Does a hammer keep God's things sacred? Of course not. It's up to the human wielding the hammer to do so, or not. Of course there's nothing "intrinsically moral" about science, just like there's nothing intrinsically moral about a hammer. And the people using such tools? The Bible says that they are intrinsically moral failures, Dan, ever since the Fall.

Besides all that, Dan, you seem terribly confused. As other commenters have already noted, but not quite as bluntly as I will, some of the failures you mention are failures of governance, not of science. Science provides knowledge, what we do with that knowledge is something that science doesn't mandate or even speak to. The way we treat our livestock or the additives we allow in our food are functions of society, not of science.

It's even ironic that you bring such examples to this discussion when our current government is doing everything it can to criminalize stem cell science. It's clear that they feel that those sorts of endeavors are immoral, while fattening beef artificially or using insects for food coloring is acceptable behavior. People are going to do whatever they can get away with doing, so long as it turns a profit (and even sometimes when it doesn't).

You may blame all that on the immorality of people in general (and the Bible certainly says that option is inescapable, for theists and atheists alike), but to blame it on science is to blame the hammer for a smashed thumb.

And not to derail the real topic here, but where is the evidence that any vaccine is linked to autism? If that link does not exist, Dan (and I've seen no evidence that it does), then your uncritical acceptance of it in this post promotes a lie that kills, and you'll have demonstrated yourself to be as morally unruddered as you claim science to be. Of course, since you are saved, what does it matter to you if your knowledge kills someone else? Giving glory to God is far more important, isn't it?

this is a response to the bomb you just dropped (which has been deleted) on my blog:

the supremacy of your arrogance has resurfaced. You need to resist the temptation to begin arguments with me. I won't play your game. Who exactly are you to judge another man's servant? I know that all of your views of who I am, and who my friends are have been eating away at you, but that's because we claim to be Christians, and take bold stances against your mainstream belief system. We confound you, because we use scriptures as our defense, and the darn scriptures don't take your side. The mainstream church that you have wrapped yourself in is heading blindly to meet face to face with a very angry God. The "fruit" of this mainstream system is rotten, and completely fascist. Delete this if you want, I will not entertain you on my blog anymore.

If you actually knew me you would understand that I am not part of any modern church or "mainstream belief system."

Background: Young Brother, who he would consider himself to be a very liberal Christian, believes that tomorrow 9/11/2008 we (the US) will be attacked so the antichrist "GW Bush" can seize power until Christ's return.

"this is a response to the bomb you just dropped (which has been deleted)"

Well, since you brought it up, and to be fair, I will just repost it here to avoid any misconception:

YB:"Well it looks like your speculation about the particle accelerator was wrong."

Oh, I knew full well that wouldn't be the case at all. Like I told my wife, getting swallowed by a black hole is not in the Bible so it couldn't be true. It was for your entertainment only. And possibly take you eyes off Bush and possibly to get you to accommodate Romans 13. Being so harsh by calling Bush the Antichrist is quite hateful and damaging and does not embody the spirit of "he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."

YB: "If I am wrong about 9-11, I will probably continue teaching about the Bible here until January, but I will not speak any more prophecies. If and when Bush leaves office, I will leave the blogosphere (and be happy about it)."

That is great to hear that if you are wrong you will concede but there are other things more important. The people that follow your belief system and are left to believe that maybe you are wrong about God as well. Jim Jones was wrong to enact God's will but people followed that false prophet to disastrous results. I believe the clan you are with are bad fruit and must be exposed. Even by you, if necessary. Remember to love is to confront.

You say you will just leave but what does that do to all the people that believed "in" you? What about their faith!!

I think a true repentance (publicly) would be in order. A large deprogramming of the cult and a real confession about how God IS in charge and we are not to know the when. A true healing and deep spiritual honesty would be in order also.

YB: What are you prepared to do if it turns out that you are "completely wrong about everything"?

Isn't that a little general and unfair question? But I will answer it, If I am wrong about everything I will do what I do when I am wrong about something. I admit my error and repent to God for getting something wrong. Then I would try to right that wrong, whatever it is.

Have you ever fasted? I believe if you are wrong about all of this you should do a good 40 day fast and get back (or stay in ) God's word and reflect on how to listen to God. That kind of cleansing and 'deny thyself' would be good for all of us to get back on God's path.

This is serious business here and I want to see and meet you in Heaven. Shaking your hand in Heaven would be a wonderfully glorious day. I just want to get across to you the potential spiritual damage and wake that you will leave behind and that possibly you may be doing more damage then good. We are not here to enact God's will, we are to follow God.

Please, humbly, right the wrongs and I will do the same.

I do wish you well.]

So if we get attacked tomorrow and Bush takes control then I owe YB a great apology and I need to reevaluate my faith and humble myself to God for mistaking the "signs", if not I wish YB would repent of his ways.

I don't know enough about it to make a solid conclusion. Of coarse I don't want Polio or Smallpox around but how did they get here in the first place? Was it something Man did to spur an epidemic. Did man do something to create it? I don't know enough about it to know.

Well man is creating cancerous things everyday the latest is processed meat

You are missing what I said, yes electricity is a wonderful invention but certain science is screwing things up. They are getting it wrong.

"but surely you must be aware that every single crop in existence today has been cultivated and modified by man for decades, if not centuries."

Yes I do without man there would be no such thing as corn. Now, we have high fructose corn syrup everywhere and in everything. It is just not good. When is the last time you had a good watermelon (with seeds) that tasted great? I remember back when I was a kid but not lately. Today rubber would be a good description of it.

"... And indoor plumbing..." Yes I have an older house with lead pipes. mmm yummy. Trial and error and we are the ginny pigs again.

"It seems you pick and choose the sciences that are the most convenient to you to deem good, much in the same way you pick and choose the passages in the bible that are the most convenient to your beliefs."

Ouch but there may some truth in that. BTW the internet was invented for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, which went online today, so the information could be stored. What a huge undertaking, I will post about it when I get time.

Whateverman,

" First, there are (very) generally two kinds of science: research (for lack of a better term) and applied. "

Would you also agree that it can be broken down into even two more areas, origin and operational?

"Could we do a better job of "policing" existing research, or even validating new products to make them more safe? Yup - most definitely."

I thought of that but who? Policicing is done today. The burocricy and pay offs, kick backs are just too prevelent to consider it effective. Maybe we should adopt China's policies to combate the coruption. "Last year, the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was executed after being convicted of taking bribes in return for approving hundreds of drug products, some of which later proved dangerous."

"you might as well shut down your computer, turn of the electricity and start growing your own food. And hope you never get sick." Trust me my friend we are close. My wife, just today, said we should get some land to grow our own things, milk our own cows, and get our own fresh eggs and chicken. We are just frustrated with CERTAIN things of today's technology. You are right we cannot be 100% all the time. God is though. I could only imagine how fresh fruit was back in day of Adam and Eve. It was simply, perfect.

Dave W,

"some of the failures you mention are failures of governance, not of science."

Now doesn't that seem to be a complete cop out? The government would never do these things if it didn't have the approval of scientists, agree?

Science is the tool (even objective) I get it, but scientists are the ones using such a tool (subjective). You cannot blame the hammer but you sure can blame the one swinging it.

"but where is the evidence that any vaccine is linked to autism?"

From what I heard so far Vaccines causes autism. But who do we turn to for answers when the experts get it all wrong?

"Giving glory to God is far more important, isn't it?" Well, I will say all of our lives depend on it.

Dave W wrote:"some of the failures you mention are failures of governance, not of science."Dan replied:"Now doesn't that seem to be a complete cop out? The government would never do these things if it didn't have the approval of scientists, agree?"

"This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable--though much less certain--that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory." Albert Einstein, warning President Roosevelt about something he fervently hoped would never come to pass.

The government has never asked for science's permission: they don't need to.Science is a public enterprise: unless a scientist refuses to release his findings, he has absolutely no control over what is done with them.

PS: The LHC went active today, and we didn't get sucked into a black hole! Now if we can survive the coming of the antibush this Sept 11, we're home and dry!

Double PS: This is a great week for Science! Not only the LHC going active and allowing us to discover more about the first moments of the universe, as well as forcing Google to change their logo (again), but this was realised on the 8th.

Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life"A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

It's not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life.

Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe.

While his latest work remains unpublished, Szostak described preliminary new success in getting protocells with genetic information inside them to replicate at the XV International Conference on the Origin of Life in Florence, Italy, last week. The replication isn't wholly autonomous, so it's not quite artificial life yet, but it is as close as anyone has ever come to turning chemicals into biological organisms.

"We've made more progress on how the membrane of a protocell could grow and divide," Szostak said in a phone interview. "What we can do now is copy a limited set of simple [genetic] sequences, but we need to be able to copy arbitrary sequences so that sequences could evolve that do something useful."

By doing "something useful" for the cell, these genes would launch the new form of life down the Darwinian evolutionary path similar to the one that our oldest living ancestors must have traveled. Though where selective pressure will lead the new form of life is impossible to know.

"Once we can get a replicating environment, we're hoping to experimentally determine what can evolve under those conditions," said Sheref Mansy, a former member of Szostak's lab and now a chemist at Denver University."

Dan said: I don't know enough about it to make a solid conclusion. Of coarse I don't want Polio or Smallpox around but how did they get here in the first place? Was it something Man did to spur an epidemic. Did man do something to create it? I don't know enough about it to know.

You're completely missing the point. Regardless of how polio, smallpox, and cancer originate, (and it's not that hard to do some research, by the way) the fact is they're here (or at least were). Science, not god or religion, is the tool for ridding ourselves of the problem. Let's say one man accidentally ingests a poisonous mushroom (an analog to your suggestion that mankind might have created polio), while another man has a poison mushroom forcibly rammed down his throat (an analog to god creating polio and inflicting it upon mankind). In both cases you would use the same antidote to save each man: a cure discovered by science, specifically biology and mycology. If you suddenly found yourself poisoned, I don't think your first thought would be to figure out how you got that way. You'd probably want the antidote first. And guess what, once you were cured, you'd use the scientific method to figure out how you came to be poisoned.

By the way, your sentence "I don't know enough about it to know" would be the perfect subtitle for all of the entries on your blog. Maybe you should look some of these things up before making blanket statements about wanting to rid the world of vaccinations. (Here's a freebie: there's evidence that polio has been around since as far back as the ancient Egyptians. And that's within the past 6000 years, so even young-earthers don't have to try to explain that away.)

Dan said: You are missing what I said, yes electricity is a wonderful invention but certain science is screwing things up. They are getting it wrong.

And again, you're demonstrating your complete misunderstanding of what science is. Science doesn't screw things up. People screw things up. You stated this yourself to Dave W: "Science is the tool (even objective) I get it, but scientists are the ones using such a tool (subjective). You cannot blame the hammer but you sure can blame the one swinging it."

Yes, you can place the blame on the men operating the tool. But you also have to credit and thank the ones that have made your life better too. In doing research we may misinterpret data or make incorrect assumptions. The results of a mistake can range from harmless to disastrous. (Or even amazingly fortuitous like the accidental discovery of penicillin.) But mistakes are part of the process and as you've been told since you were a kid, the important thing is we learn from our mistakes.

When the research of scientists has benefited you, you embrace it. But if you see something you don't like, suddenly you're up in arms against science. Don't you see how hypocritical and perverse that is? Let's state this again, and I humbly request you to ponder this statement for awhile: The scientific method is a tool. It doesn't make decisions. It doesn't judge. If a house comes out wrong, you blame the carpenter, not the hammer. If the house comes out right, you thank the carpenter, not the hammer. A hammer is a hammer whether you're using it to build a house or to nail a carpenter to a cross. The hammer doesn't care.

I had another thought. Let's keep using the Hammer=Science metaphor, but take it to a rediculous extent.

When mankind invented the hammer, they immediately wondered what it could be used for. It could be used constructively: they could build houses with it. Or, in some situations, it could be used aggressively: they could go after neighboring tribes and give them severe headaches with it.

But a large group didn't like the hammer because they found it contradicted their belief that mankind could not possibly build a house out of wood, and should live in a cave or in the open. So they tortured and killed anyone they found using hammers.

Eventually, though, their belief that houses couldn't be built was disproven by hammer-enthusiasts, who kept on building houses and didn't bother attacking the other tribes with them too much...

Slowly the hammer became better and better at what it did due to the actions of the hammer-enthusiasts, and it diversified: there were beautifully crafted construction hammers, and large and rather nasty looking warhammers. By now, everyone was living in hammer-built houses.

But anti-hammerists continued to attack the use of hammers: they would claim all hammers were bad because of the warhammers, failing to note that it wasn't the hammer or the hammer-enthusiasts to blame, but rather the evil people who promoted aggression and used the hammer in such a way. They would point out poorly constructed houses, built quickly for profit, and place the blame on the hammer and enthusiasts again, rather than the corporations who built those houses.

Or they would attack the idea of a few very specific types of house: claiming that even though houses in general could be built, these houses could not. In many cases they would even claim that they had nothing against hammers in general, but they would continually claim that these houses, built by the same hammers, could not possibly stand and should collapse.

They would then proceed to ignore, slander and misrepresent the hammer-enthusiests who build that type of house.

The hammer was nothing more than a tool.The hammer-enthusiests merely wanted to improve the hammer.

Dan wrote:"Now doesn't that seem to be a complete cop out? The government would never do these things if it didn't have the approval of scientists, agree?"

You're in clear denial of what is going on in Washington these days. When the scientists say things that the government doesn't like, the government ignores them or quashes their reports. There is a massive amount of evidence to demonstrate this, especially from within the Bush administration. Look at the issue of anthropogenic global warming, which Bush flatly denied (even killing his own experts' reports) until long after he'd already become an international laughingstock for his denial.

"Science is the tool (even objective) I get it, but scientists are the ones using such a tool (subjective). You cannot blame the hammer but you sure can blame the one swinging it."

That's what I was saying. Your targeting of science misses the mark, which would be scientists. However, even if you aim there, the real problem is what society as a whole decides to do with the knowledge gained by scientists. Our society, unfortunately, is plagued by special interest groups with deep pockets who thus can speak louder to power than all of the rest of us unorganized citizens.

"From what I heard so far Vaccines causes autism. But who do we turn to for answers when the experts get it all wrong?"

Who says that the experts are wrong at all? The K.N.O.W. Vaccines site you linked to (for example) is lying on its homepage, both directly and through omission, and that's quite obvious to anyone who knows enough to know. Resources like that certainly shouldn't be trusted, since they impeach whatever expertise they may have all on their own.

I asked:"Giving glory to God is far more important, isn't it?"

Dan replied:"Well, I will say all of our lives depend on it."

Then you're not reading your Bible very well. All of our lives here on Earth will end, period. Whether your soul continues on, disembodied and without regard to anything scientific, perhaps to someday be reborn into a physical body in a remade Earthly paradise (depending on how you read Revelations - just out of curiosity, Dan, what's your stance on the Rapture?), is another question. Why would any Christian worry about any Earthly thing that isn't directly indicated or contraindicated by Jesus?

Suffering of any sort, after all, is by God's Will. Austism, regardless of whether its due to vaccines or not, is a part of God's Plan. It is only God's right to decide whether a person lives or dies, so who is to say that any (or all) abortions are wrong?

If someone says to you, "I got cancer after eating processed meat," what other Christian response could there be but, "Praise Jesus?"

You are right scientists just create bio weapons and atom bombs but it is the government who uses that technology. BTW who is paying the scientists to do such things? Oh Yea that's right... I couldn't be so hands off with a "not my fault" attitude if I created something that destroys the earth and then my boss uses it to kill millions. I thought science was immoral not scientists.

"Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life"

I appreciate that link and thanks for proving it takes intelligence to create life. Unless you think scientists are not intelligent. I am sure they are having fun creating life.

Stealpick,

First, my atrocious spelling error "Of course I don't want..."

"Let's say one man accidentally ingests a poisonous mushroom" Ah the good old college days.

" People screw things up."

Valid point, I looked back and I did say science not scientists, my mistake, and I do know better. You are correct.

"In doing research we may misinterpret data or make incorrect assumptions."

Understatement of the year, especially in the study of evolution.

"But if you see something you don't like, suddenly you're up in arms against science. Don't you see how hypocritical and perverse that is?"

hypocritical? no way. If scientists want to prevent polio and they act as the "authority" and it works, then Great! They are doing their job well. If they kill ever single child because they were stoned or made a "incorrect assumption" then we should get the Frankenstein mob after them. They all should be held accountable for their research because of the "authority" position they hold. They cannot cower behind "don't blame me, blame the data" they would need to man up and take their due punishment. If they were held accountable they would make absolute sure they are correct instead of some loose hypothesis or speculation. If not they would be reduced to snake oil salesmen as many are these days in the field of origins or evolution anyways. A very very short time ago scientists considered blacks an inferior race of humans that haven't evolved as well as the white man. Sad, but bad scientists should be held accountable.

Quasar,

"The hammer-'enthusiasts' merely wanted to improve the hammer. "

Until we found out that it was the hammer-'enthusiasts' that used the hammer for evil purposes all along. The war-hammers labeled themselves in an innocent name called hammer-'enthusiasts' and continued to ruin the earth until all was lost.

Dave W,

"what's your stance on the Rapture?... Why would any Christian worry about any Earthly thing that isn't directly indicated or contraindicated by Jesus?"

I just found out recently there are three theories on it Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulational. I am leaning towards post myself. I do believe a rapture will happen. The details when isn't important enough to me right now. If I go then I go, I just feel we all will go through a great deal of turmoil together first. Admittedly, I haven't given it it's due study though.

what other Christian response could there be but, "Praise Jesus?" I would recommend a 40 day fast and prayer while staying in his word but that would be me.

Dan wrote:"You are right scientists just create bio weapons and atom bombs but it is the government who uses that technology."

But the process simply doesn't work like this. Let's look at one of the worst consequences of science: the atom bomb:

Einstein did theoretical research and developed a theory about how the world works.

Einstein then realised the consequences of the theory: how it can be put into use: applications for it.

All of the above information he gave out for free in the form of scientific essays: science is essentially public domain. But he also warned of the terrifying possibilities, even sending a letter the the president of the United States.

The US government then saw fit to pay (and, according to some stories, threaten) people who understood Einstein's theory to use it to figure out how to build the bomb. They then built it in mass numbers and dropped it on two innocent cities.

Who is to blame? Einstein, for realising the possibility? The working scientists, for doing the job they were paid/threatened to do? Or the government, for financing the construction and deployment of the bombs?

When you blame "Science", you blame Einstein. If you blame "Scientists", you blame the paid workers.

Dan wrote"Until we found out that it was the hammer-'enthusiasts' that used the hammer for evil purposes all along. The war-hammers labeled themselves in an innocent name called hammer-'enthusiasts' and continued to ruin the earth until all was lost."

You're ruining my analogy! A warhammer is a type of hammer, not a person!

More importantly, the hammer enthusiasts (look, Im speling the word "enthusiast" wright noow!) merely wanted to increase our knowledge about how the hammer worked. They realised that a two pronged claw would help remove nails, that a wooden handle would make it easier to hold, and that making it sharper and heavier would do more damage. They shared all the knowledge they gained with everyone who wanted to know.

Society took this knowledge, and used it to make warhammers, as well as to improve on the hammer. And anti-hammerists used this fact to lay blame on the enthusiasts and call them evil, while at the same time living in houses constructed by hammers made by hammer-enthusiasts in the first place.

The hammer enthusiasts never wanted to do anything more than learn more about the hammer.

I do, both the warmongers and the scientists that fulfilled the dreams of those warmongers. You cannot check your ethics at the door when you become scientists as many do. It does get Grey with Einstein though and I can not say either way at the moment. I would have to chew it for a while.

As far as spelling, Firefox 3 corrects spelling so instead of looking at red lines I correct it. My spelling is that of a 8th grader so I actually depend on it, to a fault.

"You're ruining my analogy!"

Oops I may have but if you replace warhammer with War-hammer enthusiasts it would work, right. War-hammer enthusiasts and hammer enthusiasts are the same people.

Let me ask you something to prove my point. When JFK said we were going to the moon do you think that was the goal or do you believe NASA was perfecting long range rocketry to reach Russia? I believe they used the the moon to gather public support and mass funding for the research, i.e. Government and NASA were both War-hammer enthusiasts.

My perspective is that scientists in general are simply interested in finding out how the world works. If left to their own devices they would likely not produce any applications. The problem is not with the scientists themselves. It is with the people who decide on applications. To use the hammer analogy: The hammer-enthusiasts are not interested in any practical applications. They only seek to understand the hammer. It is other people who take the knowledge to build houses or to bash people's heads in.

Dan: If you want to blame the few scientists that worked on the Atomic bomb, I guess I'm fine with that. When presented with a choice of whether to help produce the most horrible weapon known, they could have said no and accepted the consequences.

But while you're blaming these scientists, please keep in mind that our country was in a war that was taking a heavy toll on our population; a war against an enemy that had demonstrated a willingness (at least on a small scale) to fight to the very last. Even those scientists that weren't forced into the project certainly had had the rational (whether right or wrong) of saving many of their neighbor's lives and many of their family's lives.

That being said, your original post places the blame for all the bad things you listed squarely on the shoulders of science. Even if you do blame the scientists, personally, it doesn't make sense to blame science. As Quasar has tried to point out, the tool and the tool user are separate entities and must, therefore, be evaluated separately.

It the case of scientists, the merits of each individual scientist should be taken into account and, in the case of science, the merits of each individual field of study (or even each individual study) should be taken into account.

I realize that, despite all the good it has done, you don't have what could be called a warm fuzzy feeling, when it comes to biology. But that doesn't mean we should chuck all of science out the window.

Science education is probably one of the most important issues facing the United States, today and I urge you to reconsider before abdicating for its dissection and the abolishment of the parts you, as a layman, disagree with.

"If not they would be reduced to snake oil salesmen as many are these days in the field of origins or evolution anyways."

We've established on the 'Conclusion' article that you don't read ANY evolutionary literature. You claim the authors are lying without reading what they say. Instead you simply read rebuttals that are full of strawmen. Strangely you don't consider the possibility that these authors are lying. Double standard warning!!

You have shown no understanding of even basic evolutionary principles. So you are in no position to make the above claims.

As I explained in the 'Conclusion' article, evolutionary biology is making great strides in curing many diseases, including the autoimmune disease Lupus which your poor mother was afflicted with...

Honestly, Dan, I think you have proven that: (1) you do not understand science; (2) you do not understand history; (3) you do not understand rhetoric and rhetorical falacy; (4) you do not understand... a lot.

And yet you continue to make arguments on and with those things. The number of complete falsehoods in the blog entry and the arguments presented in the comments following it are staggering.

As I have said, I am having a crisis of faith as of late. I am leaning further and further away from the idea of believing in God. as I read the Bible, I see things (sometimes for the first time, other times again) and realize that it is just a bunch of stories. Often disconnected, quite often contradictory, and certainly with a world view that does not suggest a "God-like" knowledge of the universe and its underpinnings.

And your mangling of logic and disregard for truth in this one is simply one more nail in the coffin. I have listened as many have tried to use arguments like yours. And never in my life have they appeared so transparently and pattently false as they do here.

I want to make it clear that you are not "winning the microwave" as it were. You have your faith, and you are welcome to it. But if I were to listen to your arguments and start to see them as valid and truthful, it would have the same overall effect on my mind, as the kool-aid had on the bodies of those that took the arguments of Jim Jones and saw those as valid.

David K. Ladage said (among other things): I am having a crisis of faith as of late. I am leaning further and further away from the idea of believing in God. as I read the Bible, I see things (sometimes for the first time, other times again) and realize that it is just a bunch of stories.

Hi David. Before saying anything else, let me give you a very brief description of my background. I grew up in a moderately religious Baha'i household - great parents, lots of intellectual stimulation, etc. As I got into college, I grew away from religion for a number of reasons, at least one of which was a growing appreciation (and identification) of rational/logical processes.

Today, I consider myself a very cautious deist; I wont talk about my (half) belief in God unless someone wants to know more, and I generally only advocate critical thinking.

With this in perspective, I'm going to suggest the following: if you're having trouble with the credibility of the various religious beliefs, you're not alone. I think there are jews/christians/muslims who all try to reconcile what their heads tell them with what their Book (or spiritual leaders) tell them. Despite the representation of religious dogma, I firmly believe that most theists pick and choose reasonably from the things they're "taught" to believe.

I also firmly believe that 99.999999% of the differences between the religions are man-made. These differences have very little to do with what "God wants" (if I may use the expression).

So - I say all of this to imply the following: if you have a crisis of faith, be aware that this really may just be the result of the particular religion you adhere to. There are certainly plenty of other religions out there, and not all of them dish out dogma or fear (in the form of care).

The crisis may also simply be your wish to move away from religion, and I can certainly respect that.

Belief in God isn't necessarily binary, despite the fact that dogmatic religions tend to portray it that way. There are other options available, if you want them.

After reading k. David Ladage's comment, it appears that your blog is having the opposite effect of what its title intends. Rather than debunking atheists, you're doing a Grade A job of demonstrating the illogicality of religion and your interpretation of religion in general, as you stumble blindly around trying to reveal the holes you imagine you see in the arguments of your commenters. And as you do so, you're only exposing more flaws in your belief system and your flimsy ideology.

I'm still eagerly awaiting a post where you actually get around to the business of debunking atheists, because you sure as heck haven't even gotten close yet. But it should be simple, right? Just prove god exits. Stop wasting time with entries on evolution and science when you clearly don't understand them. Even if you were to somehow disprove evolution and all scientific fields, that still does nothing towards proving your god, or any god for that matter, exists, meaning atheists would remain completely UN. DE. BUNKED.

Dan,Gelatin is not made from animal fat. It is made from the collagen inside the connective tissues and is perfectly safe and adds great texture to many foods.

There is nothing in your kitchen with the curative properties that modern medicines have.

Many afflictions are hereditary, like hypertension and modern medicines extend the life of individuals by 20 years and more. There is nothing in your kitchen that will do that. There are hundreds of other examples.

"This bug is crushed up in yogurt and other foods for quote "natural."" And your point? There are thousands of natural organic and inorganic substances used as pigments flavoring, etc. and are perfectly safe and pretty!

"I think the New Atheists also make that leap from science into the cult of science, and that's a problem"

Cult of science. Oh man.... This is totally absurd. I wish you could have a chance to work with some scientists because you clearly have a totally bizarre idea of what it is they do and why and how they do it.

For people who have actually worked in science you come off as extremely ignorant.I'm not even arguing about your belief systems. You have every right to believe what you want, but to constantly criticize science when you do not understand it is wrong.

Dale said: You have every right to believe what you want, but to constantly criticize science when you do not understand it is wrong.

Personally, I would label it wrong-headed more than anything else.

I'm not trying to be contrary; I just want to fine-tune the (appropriate) criticism. As someone who worked previously in the life sciences, and who has always enjoyed logic and is curious about the natural world, I understood very early on in my life that making positive statements about things I had little to no knowledge of was dishonest.

Not lying, but simply a misrepresentation of my statements' authority. I can't honestly claim "Barney sucks!" without ever having watched the purple monstrosity in action.

What I've found is that people who understand life and our place in it through religion often place much more value in emotion than reason. If you feel great reverence and joy in what you believe, those beliefs are "correct".

These kinds of people feel science is wrong, and express such emotions as criticism of various topical (scientific) things.

What they fail to understand is that reason is a much more accurate way of understanding the natural world; emotion is useful, but it's not to be trusted in matters of "fact". At the risk of repeating myself, I'm going to repost a quote from one of the coolest people I've even known of:

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Science is perfectly fine as long as it's honest and ethical. Maybe I am just angry at evil. If evil wasn't in the picture then there would be no question from me. The God that I am loyal to has a plan to eradicate evil so I will be quite happy with science.

Science also is looking at the wrong goal and is doomed to fail, change that goal and they will get the touchdown we all seek.

You must admit 8 billion dollars to prove a debunked theory is a little silly. I do hope good comes from it though like BB was an incorrect theory. If they are willing to admit the results.

Remember, we are still on Mars looking for life. Science is just a ship without a rudder. God will guide us to the discoveries if we allow it. We need to stop pushing him aside to claim things for ourselves.

Dan wrote:"They all should be held accountable for their research because of the "authority" position they hold."

Nah. God should be held accountable for giving humans the skills and intelligence to do such research. Such attributes are far beyond what would be required for simple "free will."

If God did want some people to be blown up with nuclear weapons, why would He have created Uranium (or any other radioactive element)? If God didn't want some kids to have autism, why did He create Mercury?

If God is in the picture (and you, Dan, insist on it), then these horrors must be entirely God's fault. No fair blaming the consequences of science and technology on some subordinates who couldn't possibly have God's foresight or wisdom (because God made sure of that, at least).

After all, if Joe Schmoe leaves a hammer on the floor and his toddler kills a playmate with it, who would be blamed? God left lots of dangerous stuff around here on Earth for us kids to get into and mess around with. God is criminally negligent, at best.

First of all, sorry I didn't keep up with this conversation. I just don't have enough time in the day to respond to each and every thing that needs a response.

Pvblivs said: My perspective is that scientists in general are simply interested in finding out how the world works. If left to their own devices they would likely not produce any applications.

I agree with you. This is similar to the distinction I was trying to make between Research and Applied science (Dan, I didn't understand what you meant about further subdivisions).

Pure science ONLY seeks understanding of the tangible world. Applied science takes the stuff generated/validated through research and puts it to use.

So - governments invent biological weapons; corporations invent pharmaceuticals and canned meat products. Such groups obviously need scientists to do the work, but the motivation to create such things comes from the employer (not the morality of the scientist).

In other words, Dan, your problem is with the use of the knowledge - not with science itself.

Dan,you wrote,"Science also is looking at the wrong goal and is doomed to fail,...."

This is where your ignorance makes you irrelevent. What wrong goal? Science looks at empirical evedence that can be repeated and is falsifiable. You do not understnd how science works.

Then you write, "You must admit 8 billion dollars to prove a debunked theory is a little silly."

And what debunked theory are you talking about? The collider is looking to find new subatomic particles. No one can know what importance they will have. All evidence in physics points to the existence of these particles and so they are doing an experiment to see if the physics is valid.

Inspiration

"I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born." ~Ronald Reagan----"A great many of those who debunk traditional values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process." ~C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1944)----"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for." ~C.H. Spurgeon----”Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.” ~Martin Luther----”Occam's razor states that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything, however, the simple theory must be able to account for or explain what needs explaining. It's not enough to have a simpler theory if you can't account for anything. Though we shouldn't add entities beyond what's needed, we also should not subtract entities beyond what's needed.” ~Paul Manata----Until the Holy Spirit regenerates the sinner and brings him to repentance, his presuppositions will remain unaltered. And as long as the unbeliever's presuppositions are unchanged a proper acceptance and understanding of the good news of Christ's historical resurrection will be impossible. ~Dr. Bahnsen----“One of the most pernicious falsehoods ever to be almost universally accepted is that the scientific method is the only reliable way to truth” ~Professor Richard H. Bube, Stanford University----Rules of atheism"Science":

Theists will consider natural causes.Atheists will ONLY consider natural causes.

Theism posits an eternal mind followed by contingent matter.

Atheism posits matter followed by contingent minds.----"Evolution is the tinfoil hat used by atheists to keep God out of their brainwaves" ~Bevets

"It is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the bitter end" ~I. L. Cohen----from City of Angels

Seth: You're an excellent doctor.Maggie: How do you know?Seth: I have a feeling.Maggie: That's pretty flimsy evidence.Seth: Close your eyes. It's just for a moment.[touches her hand]Seth: What am I doing?Maggie: You're... touching me.Seth: Touch. How do you know?Maggie: Because, I feel it.Seth: You should trust that. You don't trust it enough.

"Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are." ~Mahatma Gandhi

"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bells, I want to run a rescue shop within the yard of hell." ~C.T. Studd

"You don't have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body." ~C.S. Lewis

"Waiting is not wasting when you are waiting on the Lord. God works while we wait." ~unknown

"Since the bible defines a Christian as one who knows God, would you consider yourself to have been a Christian according to the biblical definition?" ~Thomas Bridges

Fun Quotes

Quasar: That's like saying: "look, none of the grasshoppers evolved fire-resistant skin when I put the flamethrower to them! Evolution must be false!"